The Development of Prisons - Research Paper Example

? The Development of Prisons The following article reflects on the extreme living environment prevalent within the jails & prisons of America & other western nations on the break of the 19th century. The article follows the journey of the reforms made through the phrases of time & what sort of positive dividends it rewarded. It connotes the contributions & relentless resistance of the individuals who reformed the ramshackle American prisons & altered the very idea & definition of these ruthless confinements. The article concludes with suggestions for the future betterment of these rectificational institutions & the assessment of the American approach towards its jails. Jails & houses of rectifications were created in the American colonies soon after the revolution. The jail was designed originally for the detention of persons awaiting their trial. It soon came to be utilized as a venue for punishment after conviction. As in Great Britain, this alteration brought in increasing opposition to the use of corporal & capital punishments, & hence it was a modification of the existing system for implementing the corrective reaction to law breaking. Convicted drunkards & vagrants, particularly, were barred behind these institutions. The house of correction began as an institution for vagrants, but was not differentiable in its basic approach from the medieval jails & confinements. Oppression, vulgarity, & anarchy constituted the basic plenary of the European & American jail infrastructure. The amendment of the disciplinary reaction in the jails came at a very slow pace. As a first hand example, the number of persons confined in prisons or correctional homes after a conviction was relatively less throughout the domain of the 18th century, & in the city of New York it was not until 1788, that a wholesome law was ratified for the use of prisons & workhouses as venues of reprimand. Thus the situation & the discipline of prisons had originated from a pretty precarious position (Sutherland, Cressey, Duckenbill, 1992, p464). Over the centuries the law and standards have brought about several changes in the prisons, their structure and operations. Early dungeons By modern day standards & merits, the conditions & interiors of the jails in early days were absolutely horrific. There was lawlessness, indiscipline, & inhumane conditions both in & out of the cells. The prisoners spent their time in association, without any sort of labour, depending on charity for their entire existence. There was virtually no procedure or system to treat unwell prisoners & inmates. Religious services were also not provided for these socially prohibited trashes. Harmful alcohol, unhygienic atmosphere, & beastly conditions prevailed behind the walls of these forbidden kingdoms. The prisons in England were in a precarious position, yet there was not much ado about it. Humans living worse than animals were the general traits upon which the metaphor of the word ‘prison’ was based in the 19th century. The prisons & confinements in USA lingered in the same tottering position. The culmination of the American Revolution did not bring any sort of positive change amidst the jails & prisons. The Walnut street jail in Philadelphia was one of the most ill maintained jails of the time (Sutherland, Cressey & Luckenbill, 1992, p.464). It created an atmosphere of immoral & unbridled sexual interaction. Perpetual disturbance & debauchery was the order of the day. The entire ambience reflected a situation of complete anarchy. There was no labor, no separations of those accused & those who neither were untried, nor even those arrested for mere failures of debts (Sutherland, Cressey & Luckenbill, 1992, p.464). All those people were stuffed within the same god forbidden space, thus sprouting up gushes of anarchy & lunacy. Convicts of the foulest of crimes & those yet to be convicted, shared spaces like age old comrades (Sutherland, Cressey & Luckenbill, 1992, p464). There was no separation on the basis of age, sex, & color. To be precise, the idea of separation did not seem to prevail at all. Men & women lingered together over nights & days resulting in pathetic sexual massacres. Thus the 19th century American prison was a place of gravest nightmare which was light years away from producing any chance of ‘rectification’ for the convicts. It was the place which rather ignited the devilish traits of human psychology (Sutherland, Cressey & Luckenbill, 1992, p.464). The prisons witnessed inmates lying on the floor without any bedding or protection. This resulted in unprecedented chaos. The first reform came, when the two sexes were separated. The women fugitives appeared to have got a second lease of life. Women flocked from the general wards to their newly discovered ‘home’ (Sutherland, Cressey &Luckenbill, 1992, p.464). Captain Hall & the introduction of humanity in the American prison order The gradual improvement of American prisons happened with help of Captain Basil Hall. He regularized, systematized, & rectified the infrastructure of the US prisons. He felt the urgency to improve the dire state of affairs of the prisons. Hall realized the requirement of a just & humane condition for the down trodden inmates. He observed the agony & anguish of the victims who had not only been discarded from the flow of society, but also gutted out from the very essence of life. Hall visited Mount Pleasant Prison & witnessed the fearful monotony in the usual life of the convict. He noted: “the convicts who are sentenced to the confinements in the state prisons of America, are chiefly such as England would be executed or banished” (Lewis, 2005, p.116). Hall provided the earliest suggestion & idea of reducing a victim’s sentence. This was much later incorporated as a customary law. Unfortunately the bulk of the suggestions which he proposed were ignored by the short sighted law makers of those ages (Lewis, 2005, p.116). Hall proposed that an inmate should be allowed to live life like a normal human being. He argued: “why, if disobedience be punished, should not obedience be rewarded?” (Lewis, 2005, p.116) Hall argued that every prisoner deserved a second chance. He proposed that if a prisoner behaved well for 7 days i.e. a week, then an entire day could be struck off from the duration of his total sentence. Naturally, the ‘practical’ forefathers treated his concepts as utopian & discarded it. But the modern day American prisons act thoroughly based on the principles of this thespian visionary. The modern day American prison works on the fundamental values of the human rights, but the crux of their governance bestows within the enigmatic visions Captain Hall (Lewis, 2005, pp.116-117). Today everyone witnesses Printed communication tables, resembling logarithmic charts, indication for the clerk’s assistance of the exact ‘time off’ the inmates earn through good behaviors in the interiors of American prisons. Discipline has been significantly restored. Morality has been discovered. Humanity has been revealed (Lewis, 2005, pp.116-117). Captain Hall’s dream has turned out to be true. The present day American prisons are witnessing the disappearance of the communication tables in favor of the implementation of the imprecise sentence. Victims are gasping the breath of fresh air, long which they fathomed & deserved. Modern changes The upcoming scenario in the American cellular network seems promising if not inspiring. Consumerism & modernization has reimbursed a new form of mechanical in humanism, which has often tormented the inmates of these secluded imprisonments. New outlooks of cerebral torture are reported to have been used in a masochistic manner. Nevertheless the perils & darkness which once engulfed the bars & walls of these prisons seem to have evaporated into the abyss of oblivion & void. Policies are regularly being incorporated. The officials are enduring answerability to the press & creating an ambience which acknowledges basic human rights & moral obligations. Unfortunately, the modern-day American political scenario has demanded a ‘get tough on crime & criminals’ approach to criminal justice policy. This approach has resulted in politically popular but overly simplistic solutions to the complex problem of crime in society, including the rampant means of access of determinate sentencing laws. These policies may inevitably lead to heightened levels of prison crowding & inhumane treatment in American prisons. The national prison project programme has been invented to tackle these menaces & would indisputably play a vital role in the movement to reform US prisons (McShane & Williams, 1996, p.528). Concluding remarks Despite all the developments, some prisons in America continue to practice unapproved ways & means of treating the inmates. The general views about prisons are mistaken because they are fixed on specific type of prison. The images & illusions linger on, encircling modern day prisons like a fog & blurring sights of the outer world. Thus it becomes difficult for nongovernmental organizations to have a proper insight within the jails (Irwin, 1980, p.29). It may also be concluded that the prisons of Abu Ghraib in Iraq witnessed some of the most menacing forms of torture by the US army, during the Iraq war. These tortures were conducted by soldiers who had received firsthand information on this subject at prisons situated within the US archipelago. This raises serious doubts on whether prisoners in the US are treated humanely or maybe everything is a socio-political hoax (Hartnett, 2010, p.46). References 1) Hartnett, S.J. (2010), Challenging the prison industrial Complex, Activism, Arts, & Educational Alternatives, New York City, University of Illionis Press. 2) Irwin, J. (1980), Prisons in turmoil, New York City, Little, Brown. 3) Lewis, O. F. (2005), The development of American Prisons & Prison Customs, Montana, Kessinger Publishing. 4) McShane, M.D.Williams, F. P. (1996), Encyclopedia of American prisons, United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis. 5) Sutherland, E. H. Cressey, D.R, Luckenbill, D. F., (1992), Principles of Criminology, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield. Read More